Thursday, December 31, 2015

At the start of every year, I think to myself, "Well, I doubt this upcoming year is going to have much yeti in it." And I'm inevitably proven wrong.

2015 was no exception to the personal wrong-proving. Who knew that Disney would redesign Harold, its famous Matterhorn ride animatronic? Or that someone would run around the frozen streets of the Boston blizzard in a generic yeti costume to become a huge social media star, garnering national attention? Or that two big summer kids movies would have yetis?

Or that a whopping SIX (6) picture books would come out with yeti as the main subject?!

Follow me as I take a fine-toothed comb and fully flick through Fab '15, the Year of the Yeti....

NEWS:

Easily the biggest news item of the year was the Boston Yeti. This anonymous do-gooder made a big impact.

Examples of coverage from when he made his original appearance during the Boston Blizzard in early 2015:

In other news: with Saks Fifth Avenue making it a staple of their holiday branding, there has been a continued fad for clothing stores to set up elaborate window displays featuring a yeti or two, the most famous this year being Dolce & Gabbana (I blogged about the Milan one in Feb):

Goosebumps put a spotlight on the Abominable Snowman of Pasadena as one of the chief antagonists:

The story features a yeti getting unleashed into the world from a magical book, and young people have to put a stop to it.

Side note: Could this prevent us from seeing yetis in an even more major tent pole film series in the near future? Recently, plot elements were revealed about the upcoming 2016 Harry Potter prequel movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The story will feature various rare and endangered magical creatures getting unleashed into the world from a magical valise, and young people have to put a stop to it. Sound familiar? Now, the Yeti is canonically part of the Harry Potter universe, mentioned in the actual novels, and is even an entry in the fantastic bestiary book the new films are based on, but having such a similar plot element in Goosebumps will likely mean Rowling will avoid including yeti in her films. It's already been done in Goosebumps so memorably. This makes me sad; so much so that I'm seeing Dementors. :(

Earlier this week, I showed you what some of the earlier (more traditionally yeti-ish) designs looked like for the game. And I'll be honest and say I was a little disappointed with the final result, which reads to me more as a hulking zombie-mutant (see game spoilers for why this is) rather than the familiar Abominable Snowbeast we all know and love, and actually want.

But I will say I was happy to see that LEGO Worlds made the Series 11 mini-figure be a playable character - Huzzah!

And, also worthy of mentioning, Bloodborne has its creepy Giant Lost Children, which players nicknamed "Yeti". Good for them.

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Anyway, mobile gaming had a strong offering, as per usual...

Lara Croft: Relic Run was hugely popular and brought yeti (three types!) back into the world of Tomb Raider.

Beast Quest, based on the book series, has the yeti as just one of its many boss fights, but it uses it as its icon and places it prominently on the title screen:

Occasionally in my trawlings, I learn about projects where there might have been yeti involved - it got real close - but we ended up with not yeti. If only things had gone another way. Somewhere there's an alternate reality where these yetis exist...

> According to her Wikipedia entry, as of 2010, Jill Culton, director of Open Season, is "writing and directing an animated film about a little girl and a Yeti, tentatively titled Everest." Um, that never happened, I guess.